It’s no thing of beauty! I’ll try to get a pic over the weekend.

I made one up over Xmas – couple of QRs, a bit of aluminium tubing (2 quid a metre from DIY store) to be a pretend axle and some old offcuts of wood.

Routered out channel for the axle in one bit of wood (effectively the hub), secured axle in the channel with a bit of ply over the top, fixed that bit of wood on top of another bit (offcentre to allow shadow mech to dangle), then fixed the whole lot onto a base plate.

Took an afternoon to make 2, but it was either that or visit the in-laws…

FWIW the most screwed up person I know is (was?) in line for over 100M when their dad pops off. In some ways they’ve got everything on a plate, but in other ways they’ve got nothing. I wouldn’t swap, even now.

I’m well chuffed with a pair of these (the shorter stlye) that I got in the autumn. Stick em on over your socks, result = dry socks & warm feet. Won’t work with shorts though.

Are we sure it was really a mistake and not the first sign of the lizard people’s brain washing waves beaming in from outer space? After all, Colin Powell promised something about now didn’t he. BTW what tin foil’s best for a new hat?

13 GCEs, 4 A levels, 2 S levels, BSc Hons in Maths – used to be around 60K+ a year but gave it up for a career change. Current year probably around 25K (disposable income), next year who knows…

Used to be Finish Line Green in the wet but I got some RocknRoll Extreme in the CRC flood sale and I’ve been impressed so far – does the job without attracting any gunk, so the chain is really easy to clean post ride (if you’re into that sort of thing)

Well these guys[/url] seem to have put in a heck of a lot of effort to put that record attempt together – I say well done to ’em!

It looks a bit of a faff, but if you look for Sky+ video extraction you’ll find links like this. And looks like you need a valid viewing card to do the decoding.

Probably easiest thing (but will lose some quality) is to just record them to DVD then rip that to your Mac before you cancel the contract.

Eberg – Love your bum

Were they trying to pay for acne cream? If so, could suggest the EZ "godz of teh internet" are up to their tricks again

Mastiles – you’d be surprised what Kylie looks like first thing in the morning too – I was ;-)

Personally I don’t think a lot of the anti-Hamilton-ness derives from race, not in the UK anyway. It’s more to do with his media image and in some ways is similar to the way Schumacher was perceived in this country when he started showing his talent – with Schu his arrogant image apparently came about because of his relatively poor English, so he spoke in a simplistic Germanic way and it didn’t go down too well. As Schu’s English improved he became more relaxed and started to show a bit more humanity. Didn’t stop him cheating of course, but he was a quick cheat.

With Hamilton I think a lot of it is due to his dad’s poor management of him – had Hamilton taken on a new manager in 2007 they would probably have gone on a PR offensive to give him a different image than that which he ended up projecting. When he’s relaxed and off-guard Hamilton can be a genuinely affable, likeable guy but when he’s on-duty he comes accross as too much of a company man and that stifles his personality. Still frickin quick tho!

New Toyota revealed today – quite different to the Ferrari in some areas. I’m loving the smooth lines of this year’s cars – and the new rules seem to be generating some different design solutions which is going to be ‘interesting’. McLaren launch tomorrow so we’ll get to see what Hamilton’s gonna be cutting corners in this year ;-)

Need – not to be sick or injured
Want – skillz

Dorset Knob – how about something a little more classic? Can’t beat an Eames…

psychle – Marmite >>> Vegemite. About 15 yrs ago I made a mistake and spread Vegemite on my toast as if it were Marmite, took a healthy bite and… I think I can still taste it.

Hockey – the real kind – underwater.

I used to work in air traffic research and we looked at a 3rd Heathrow runway back in the mid 90s. It’s not a simple case of more runways = more flights, as the airspace over the south of the UK is massively busy and operates at or near capacity a lot of the time. You’ve got Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, City and a bunch of private airfields all delivering/receiving traffic in a relatively small piece of airspace. Once en-route the airspace is divided into sectors, with each controller responsible for managing the traffic in their sector, and they have to be able to do this safely even if the fancy machinery goes pop and their just left with voice comms. As a result there’s a maximum capacity for the airspace which is determined by the controller’s workload, and even in the 90s they were running at or above capacity and we were looking at ways to restructure the airspace so that capacity could be increased. To help this there are procedures in place that define normal exit and entry conditions between the sectors, as well as standard arrival and departure routes for all of the runways at all of the airports – basically a 3D maze of routes where you can’t tweak one thing without changing a lot of others.

So to add capacity you need runways for departure & take off plus an airspace structure that allows the controllers to manage the airspace safely with the increased amount of traffic. AIUI BAA are the ones pushing for the runway, but the CAA (NATS) and indirectly the controllers will be responsible for determining the airspace structure around this and therefore the safe level of traffic that can be handled. If that level of traffic isn’t *very* different to the current level, then the new runway is pretty pointless. But you and I will never know the findings of the various bits of work that are (hopefully) going on about this.

Of course you also need capacity for the increased number of planes on the ground – before T5 Heathrow was suffering from congestion at the terminal gates and as a result lots of planes were embarking/disembarking away from the terminals etc.

Ishouldbeworking – we did a similar trip a few years back, and it’s probably sacrilege but I actually preferred Wellington (Makara Peak) to Rotorua – Rotorua is all fine and dandy but you’re just riding through a fairly dense forest and I started to get the feeling that the trails were a bit crammed in there, especially nearer the car park. Fine if you just want to ride some very well graded (levels 1-6) trails, but a bit dull in terms of the overall experience. At Wellington I got a bit more of a feel of achievement, having ridden up something, stopped at the top and then come back down. IIRC for Wellington we hired from a bike shop in Karori which is only a mile or so from the bottom of the hill, and they were great at suggesting trails for the conditions (windy!) and our skill level.

same as fingerbike!

Don’t have a problem with my Superlites – just tighten the stringy bit and they stay where they’re put. Mrs P has got some of the Gore ones and you can see why they’re twice the price – nice bit of kit.

I can’t make it tomorrow but have been out in Swinley this morning – pretty much everything is frozen solid so it’s more like riding on rippled concrete. It’s fast too, but wear something warm!

easy answer – look for gore tex boot liners on ebay. i nabbed a pair of ankle length ones for 99p plus postage – bargaintastic. the tops are a bit flappy but if you’re using tights/trousers/baggy jeans then that’s not a problem. They do the job of keeping your feet warm and dry but your shoes still need drying out.

Another difference between PADI & BSAC is what happens post qualification – with BSAC you’re in a club environment so, as long as the club is active, you get to dive with the same group of people and develop a trust and understanding of them. With PADI you book onto dives organised by your local PADI shop/centre and the group on the boat may be quite different each time.

It’s a bit like the difference between riding with a regular group or turning up to rides organised by your LBS. Admittedly you may get a few regulars along to each LBS ride, but there will always be a subtle difference between the two rides.

(Cards on the table – BSAC trained, ex instructor, ex Diving Officer of club but jacked all that club stuff in years ago to be able to just go diving with a bunch of mates)

I buy and read ST because it’s not all about kit reviews and skillz – there’s a lot of stuff about just getting out on a bike, and quite a few of those articles never mention the hardware but talk about the experience. Admittedly some of those articles may not be that brilliantly written but my view on that is put up or shut up – the editors work with the submissions that they get, so if you think you can do better then go ahead and try! FWIW I’ve had one article published in a diving mag, which went through a bit of editorial tweaking to get from my version to the printed page, but I haven’t done anything of consequence on a bike so am in no position to throw stones.

By the way, if you think some MTB mags are holiday brochures interspersed with reviews written from press releases then you would hate the scuba diving press!

Might be worth showing your face over at Yorkshire Divers[/url] – the diving version of STW. You’re bound to get a shedload of opinion, abuse, random bollox and maybe even some helpful answers over there.

We get loadsa woodpeckers – spotted rather than green though. Have got some Redpolls that have just started visiting now that we’ve put out some Niger seed – last year I trained a Robin to take mealworms from my hand but it seems to have been turfed out by a new fella who’s not so keen.

I design gardens for a living which is a) a luxury item that gets cut when times are hard, b) is linked to the housing market and c) is often funded by borrowing…. not an ideal place to be right now!

Aye Trimix – at least my fitness & skillz will benefit as the business goes down the pan! Let’s just hope it’s a decent summer… and spring… in fact a nice February could be good….